A Flash of Truth
by RainbowFang
Summary: When the herd came upon the creek-bed, the cattle jumped the small ditch easily and thundered up the hill. It was only after Rose, Wyatt, and Wrangler had gone over also that they noticed that two young heifers hadn't made the jump.


_A Flash of Truth_

_A Short Story by _

_Cheyenne Wolfe_

Chapter 1

THE SOUND OF thunder rumbled through the Montana mountains. Dark clouds tumbled over one another in the heavy sky, bearing the foreboding burden of water.

Wyatt frowned at the dark clouds, his brow furrowing. 'Looks like the weatherman were right,' he said quietly, shifting the leather reins to his other hand. His gelding nickered upon seeing another horse and rider come up on top of the grassy hill.

'Hey,' Rose said, pulling up beside her husband. The horses sniffed each other's breath when they met.

'Hey,' Wyatt replied with a small smile.

'Looks like the clouds are coming in quick over the ridge,' said Rose as she surveyed the sky.

Wyatt nodded. 'I agree. We'd better get the cattle up to high ground right away before it starts raining up on the mountains. I didn't like the sound of that flash flood watch on the television before I went outside.'

Rose nodded.

Wyatt clucked to his horse. 'Let's get going.'

'Gotcha,' said Rose, asking her mare to move. When they reached the bottom of the hill and had started heading toward their cattle herd, she pointed in their direction and said, 'Our best bet of getting them up on Poke's Mound the fastest is if we split up and have Wrangler drive them from the rear.'

Wyatt nodded. 'Just what I was thinking. You go get Wrangler, and I'll wait on the west side of the herd.'

Rose took off on her mare back towards the barn where their Australian Shepherd, Wrangler, was guarding the chickens and sheep. They raised these animals for extra profit, selling eggs, mutton and wool to their customers in Sand Springs, northwest of their ranch.

After the two riders and their dog surrounded the herd, they began the nerve-racking process of guiding the mass of cattle onto safer, higher ground.

'Gid'ap! Come on! Yeee-ep!'

Wyatt waved his hat around at the cows and shouted to keep them moving, Wrangler nipped at their hocks and barked at them so they wouldn't turn around, and Rose used her cutting skills whenever some tried to break formation. They kept this up until they had the herd trotting up to a small, dry creek-bed. The creek-bed split into two, each rounding the edges of the wide, grass-and-pine-tree-covered bluff named Poke's Mound, until they met on the east side to become one creek again.

When the herd came upon the creek-bed, the cattle jumped the small ditch easily and thundered up the hill. It was only after Rose, Wyatt, and Wrangler had gone over also that they noticed that two young heifers hadn't made the jump. They had been pushed into the ditch by the other cattle and fallen into the dry dirt. Wyatt turned around to go back and get them out, but he stopped his horse when he heard a deep rumbling from the north. He turned to look that way and gasped as he saw a tall wall of dirty water rushing down the valley floor, straight for the heifers in the ditch. Wyatt watched in disbelief as, just as they started to get up in fright, the water hit them and swirled them away downstream. He turned back and went up the hill as the water level rose slowly towards him.

When he reached the top, he told Rose what had happened and cantered off to round up the herd. Rose followed him.

'Look how fast it's rising, Wyatt.'

'I'm more concerned that Poke's Mound is surrounded by it, Rose. How are we going to get back to the house tonight? We'll be swept away if we try to leave.'

Rose sighed, uncinching her saddle. Her mare took a deep breath in appreciation when the saddle was removed from her back. Rose patted her mount. She set the saddle down in the pine needles and lay the bridle on top. She turned to Wyatt. 'Well, I did stuff a couple of sandwiches in my saddle bags, along with two bottles of water this morning when we had planned to go trail riding. We can eat and drink that and sleep here tonight with the cattle.'

Wyatt thought about it for a second. 'Alright. What other choice do we have?'

Rose smirked at her husband, as if to say: 'You're welcome.'

After they had bedded down for the night under their saddle blankets, Rose and Wyatt fell asleep under a tree with the sound of churning water drumming on their ears. The cattle lay down under the trees and slept, albeit a bit restlessly; every once in a while was a long 'moo' heard. Even Wrangler finally settled down enough to watch the herd as he sat on his haunches. The stars and the moon passed overhead and eventually they disappeared into the glow of the rising sun.

Wyatt sat up and stretched, his saddle blanket covered in a light dusting of frost. He reached up and felt his hair. 'I could really go for a hot shower right about now.'

Rose stirred at his voice and opened her eyes from under her saddle blanket. She sat up and shivered in the open air. 'Bit chilly this morning, isn't it?' She let out a huge yawn.

Wyatt reached over and hugged her with one arm. 'Agreed.'

Rose leaned into his side. 'I wonder if the water went down at all since last night. I want to go home and have a nice, hot, bubble bath with a steaming mug of green tea.'

'Same here.'

A heifer bellowed loudly into the air mournfully. Rose chuckled a bit at that. 'I think it's definitely time we got going, don't you think, dear?'

'Mmhm.'

After the couple had found their horses eating dewy grass on the far side of the herd and had saddled and mounted them, they called Wrangler and headed down the hillside towards the creek. The water level was still pretty high but was significantly lower than it had been the night before. Wyatt got off his gelding and picked up a muddy stick left on the ground from the water and threw it into the creek. It plopped into the water and reappeared on the surface a couple feet downstream, where it continued on its way rather quickly.

'Maybe we should wait until noon. The water's still moving too fast to cross.'

Rose watched the stick float out of sight. 'I suppose. However, I want to go around the hill and look for a spot to cross that isn't so wide on the other side.'

Wyatt wiped his hands off on his jeans. 'Go ahead. I'll be down here.'

Rose turned her mare around and walked near the water's edge out of sight.

After she had disappeared from view, Wyatt remounted his horse and walked in the other direction, keeping his eyes on the creek. He figured that he would meet up with Rose instead of waiting in the mud for a few minutes. After a minute or two of riding, he saw the roots of a huge pine tree sticking up out of the middle of the creek. There was something large and white entangled in them. Wyatt urged his gelding to a trot when he thought it might be a heifer or a cow from his herd.

When Wyatt stopped even with the roots, he saw the object for what it really was. The sight of it made him put a fist to his mouth in horror.

It was a dead woman's body.


End file.
